Explores the effect that capitalist ambition has on our psyches and societies, and what a world without ambition might look like.
Since the 1980s, ambition has become the driving logic of our world. We're told that everyone has always wanted to ascend to the heights of their societies. We're told that we can achieve anything we set our minds to and overcome any obstacle to live out our fantasies. And we're told that if we fail, we have nothing to blame but ourselves.
In Against Ambition, Bill Peel explores how capitalism created this cult of ambition and turned our lives into nothing more than goal-oriented investments. He shows how the ambitious life of hard work and self-sacrifice reinforces neoliberalism and turns all of us into little more than failed versions of the selves we dream of becoming. Rather than political actors capable of creating a better world, capitalist ambition turns all of us into individual climbers on the social ladder, foreclosing the possibility of collective action.
Where capitalist ambition turns life into an investment strategy, driven by the "rise and grind" mentality, passive income side hustles and ruthless corporate backstabbing, Against Ambition makes the case for the radical potential of giving up, arguing instead that we should be able to waste our time however we see fit. Bill Peel is writer from regional New South Wales, Australia. His debut book Tonight It's a World We Bury: Black Metal, Red Politics was published in 2023. His other writing has appeared in Astral Noize, Jacobin, and Overland, but he spends more time doing nothing of note.
